Tomol Construction

A Chumash tomol. Painting by Robert Thomas. Click any image to enlarge.In our previous post, we looked at social and economic aspects of the California Chumash planked canoe or tomol. Now lets see how they were built.The primary construction materials were softwood for planking, asphaltum (i.e., bitumen) and pine pitch for sealing, and red milkweed for caulking and sewing. Redwood was the